PULLING AT THE HEARTSTRINGS: THE ECO-ART AND ACTIVISM OF HEATHER FREITAS

Heather Freitas, a stunning mixed media artist who employs recycled materials, has a cause. Although she graduated from ASU in 2014, she says she really found her calling in February when she was preparing for the WHAM West Gallery Recycled Art Festival in Surprise. It was then that she realized that her deepest passion was EcoArt, and she would become an eco-art activist. She would use recycled materials, our waste, to produce art to make statements about our problems of waste, and the human impact on our deteriorating environment.

“Deforestation, GMO’s, a plastic wasteland and PCB’s along with DDT still reside around us and will continue to impact us in the long run building to a point where at one time there may be no turning back,” she says in her Bio.

In explaining Wasteland, she writes, “All around us there are hidden toxins that are damaging not only our environment and everything in it, but us as well. The worst part? We are the ones creating most of these toxins.”

Freitas’ work is as impressive as it is beautiful. She is to be commended for using recycled materials, an exciting way of creating art that is growing in popularity. But that she uses those recycled materials to drive home to us the need to recycle, because those very materials are crippling our environment, is doubly impressive.

Freitas says it’s important to realize how influential art can be in making a difference in the world. Art should not only “document the times” but bring awareness to the need to formulate real solutions to critical contemporary issues. “It is said that one person can not change the world, but it is with my deepest hopes that my artwork can.”

Freitas can be reached at contemporaryandmodern@gmail.com or visit http://www.contemporaryandmodern.com. follow at facebook.com/contemporaryandmodern or contact at (480)234-1604.